The mounting of a round bale handling attachment on the three point hitch of a tractor has become a common practice. These attachments, although generally satisfactory for the purpose of picking up and transporting a bale, have limited capacity for arranging the bale for storage. Also, inconvenience is encountered in the releasing of a bale since this operation is limited to moving the tractor away from the bale when the bale is ground supported.
Thus, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,934,726, a round bale is impaled on a pair of tine members and then is maintained on the tine members by a power actuated holding arm. When the bale is to be released, it is initially supported on the ground after which the holding arm is rendered ineffective and the tractor advanced to pull the tines from the bale.
The attachment shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,957,167 has the bale supported on tine members which are movable to lowered horizontally extended positions for loading the bale. The bale is released by reversing the loading operation or by tilting the tine members downwardly when the tractor lift arms are in their elevated positions. This tilting action provides for the bale being dropped directly to the ground.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,921,837 shows a bale carrier attachment for the bucket of a tractor mounted front end loader. A bale is impaled on tine members that project forwardly from the bucket after which the tines are elevated and tilted upwardly and forwardly to hold the bale for transport. This attachment provides for the bales being stored in tiers but release of a bale from the attachment is only made by reversing the tractor to pull the tines from the bale.